Towards a WAS Youth Initiative

According to the UNFPA, more than 1.5 billion people today are between the ages of 10 and 25. It is the largest generation of young people in history. Over the past decades, scientific research and numerous surveys have continuously demonstrated the many sexual problems faced by young people, which are related to their particular developmental characteristics. Hence, in its Millenium Declaration, the WAS (2008) recognizes their great need for comprehensive sexuality education and sexual health services. But as well as youths are prone to be affected by many sexual issues, they can also become powerful sexual health advocates, as their actions have proved over the last years.

Thus, it is crucial for the concretization of the Millenium Declaration, and for the institutional life of WAS, to start developing mechanisms of youth participation within WAS itself, as youths can become a driving force that would contribute to the consolidation of WAS as the leading global organization devoted to sexual health.
The WAS Youth Initiative emerges in this context, with three main strategies to undertake: the constitution of the WAS Youth Initiative Committee with youth members of the five WAS Federations; the use of modern communication technologies, particularly, the creation of Internet sites that would spread all the Initiative activities; and an International Consultation, “Youth's Sexual Health in the XXI Century”, in response to the new sexual health challenges and, consequently, in a necessary effort to define, through a youth-adult partnership, the WAS guidelines to develop future work targeting youth.

Recorded in June 2011 at the 20th WAS World Congress for Sexual Health
Forging the Future: Sexual Health for the 21st Century, Glasgow, UK.
The World Association Of Sexual Health at http://www.worldsexology.org

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Anton Castellanos Usigli

Antón Castellanos Usigli, MPH, is a public health professional, consultant, advocate and blogger committed to global sexual health and sexual rights. He started promoting sex education in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where he organized the first sex education Conference at just 19 years of age. In 2011, he founded the Youth Initiative at the World Association for Sexual Health (WAS). Antón is a Member of the Global Advisory Board (GAB) on Sexual Health and Wellbeing, a group of global experts brought together by Durex to advance the links between sexual health, sexual rights and sexual pleasure across policies and programs.

As a consultant, he has worked for the Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership (NMPP), for RNW Media, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). In the past, he also worked for the Mexican Federation of Sexuality Education & Sexology in Mexico City and for the Western Pacific Regional Office of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Manila, Philippines. Currently, Antón is the Manager of an HIV/STIs prevention program at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, focused on Hispanic men who have sex with men and women.